Barack Obama

Healthcare providers are expressing support for legislation overwhelmingly approved by Congress that would require hospitals to notify Medicare patients when they are under observation care in a hospital but have not been admitted. Some observers, however, say the measure doesn't address the...

The Food and Drug Administration has approved Praluent, the first in an experimental class of biotechnology drugs, which is shown to lower bad cholesterol more significantly than older medicines that have been prescribed for decades.

The hips and knees of the nation's seniors were an obvious target for Medicare's first mandatory test of an alternative payment model for hospitals. But joint replacement isn't the only possible target. Hospitals are now on notice that Medicare will move ahead if they don't do it on their own.

Most senior citizens will fight fiercely to remain in their own homes, often well beyond their physical or even mental capacity to take care of themselves. A recent ACA-initiated demonstration program suggests there may be savings for Medicare if that's where seniors receive care.

Friday is the Republicans' self-imposed deadline to establish a fast-track budget procedure to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But the process likely will play out more as political theater than as a genuine threat to the law.

A Senate panel on Thursday will probe whether HealthCare.gov's glitches are fixed. Republicans are skeptical of Andy Slavitt, who was hired to fix HealthCare.gov after its disastrous launch and is now President Barack Obama's pick to run the agency responsible for it.

For the first time, the Obama administration is proposing to require hospitals to participate in a Medicare demonstration of an alternative payment model, a recognition that the voluntary approach isn't going to achieve the rapid shift it seeks away from fee-for-service.